Chapter Seventeen

A week of forced politeness,
stalemate negotiations, and diplomatic dinners left Kyr feeling like he’d punch
the next person to say the word ‘truce’ in his presence. The fact that he’d barely seen Solan or
Torin—one or both of them constantly with Lokan as the terms of the treaty were
hammered out with all the speed of a glacier moving to the sea—only frustrated
him more. He’d been invited to sit in on
the first day, to participate as a human at least nominally on the side of the
Fae, but he’d refused, telling Solan he’d have more fun watching paint
dry. Solan had smiled a bit and kissed
his cheek, and the only time they’d had alone together since had been a few
hours of sleep each night in Solan’s bedroom in Arian Mawr.
Solan’s mother had been the first
to suggest Arian Mawr as a neutral place to hammer out terms, and represented
the town’s interests herself, leaving the mayor to what she termed the more
important job of keeping the town running no matter who was in it. The remnants of the human army had been
mostly rounded up and were now camped on the outskirts of town, still prisoners
under the watchful eye of the Fae in fact if not in name. Kyr sympathized with them and even with the
fighters still caught up in skirmishes elsewhere, refusing to believe that the
war was done. He itched to do something
other than sit around and pretend to make nice, restless in a way that even
running until he dripped sweat couldn’t erase.
Spring came suddenly, almost
overnight; a few heavy rainstorms and the snow was almost gone, soaking the
earth into thick mud and leaving deep puddles all over the streets for cars to
splash on passersby. When the rain
stopped Kyr went out to help clear away the twisted wrecks of vehicles from the
fields below the hill. He was a little surprised
when a group of Fae soldiers, led by the pale scarred woman he and Torin had
seen on the road to Arian Mawr, came to lend a hand. Little conversation passed between them but
Kyr started to understand it was all over, finally, when he watched Fae and
human working easily side by side.
Another week passed and the peace
talks moved carefully forward, but Kyr still couldn’t shake his restless
unease. He managed to catch Torin alone
on a clear evening mid-week and together they walked away from town, past
fields that were still more muddy brown than green.
“I feel kind of useless,” he said
when the town’s lights had grown small behind them. “Really fuckin’ useless, actually.”
“You kind of are. You’re a soldier but there’s no war left for
you to fight.” Torin kicked a small rock
out of his path, sending it flying into darkness off the toe of his boot.
“Thanks, Tor. There’s still skirmishes down south. Maybe I should go down there.”
Torin gave him half a smile. “To fight on which side?”
“Both sides,” Kyr said,
laughing. “I’ll be the best fucking
double-double agent there is.”
“You’re not nearly pointy enough
to pass for Fae.” Torin slung an arm
around his shoulders. “And too short.”
Kyr made a ‘hm’ noise, then
suddenly threw his weight against Torin’s side, knocking him into the wet
sunken grass at the side of the road. Torin’s
outraged yelp cheered him up immensely and he fought to stop laughing long
enough to offer Torin a hand. He was
still laughing when Torin kicked his feet out from under him, landing him in
the mud with a rotten squelch, and tackled him, trying to pin him down.
By the time they’d wrestled each
other into exhaustion, they were both covered in slimy, smelly mud and soaked
right down to the skin. The nights were
still cold enough to chill and they huddled close together, shoulders bumping,
on the walk back into town, ignoring the stares and raised eyebrows. Solan’s mother took one look at them and
ordered them to strip on the porch so she could hose their clothing off, then
sent them straight upstairs to the shower.
Standing under the hot spray and half-listening to Torin telling him to
move his scrawny ass and stop hogging all the hot water, he felt the tense
muscles across his shoulders finally start to relax a little.
He stayed up late that night,
slipping through comic books that now seemed too idealised and a little silly,
until Solan came in and sprawled bonelessly across the bed, still fully
clothed. He put his head in Kyr’s lap,
absently nuzzling at Kyr’s thigh in a way that made Kyr even less interested in
the comic book, and heaved a deep sigh.
“Long day?” Kyr asked, putting
the comic aside and running his fingers through Solan’s hair.
“People are stupid,” Solan
mumbled. “Fae people, human people, all
idiots.”
“Just figured that out?”
“They’re just... Everyone has to argue about every little thing,
so it takes hours to decide on everything.
I’m surprised we could all agree on lunch today.”
“Exactly why I’m not there
playing diplomat with you.”
Solan laughed a little, though it
turned into a sigh halfway through. “Somebody
tell me what a high school dropout is even doing playing diplomat with kings
and generals and Ceridwen. Who is scary,
by the way. All she has to do is raise
an eyebrow and grown men shake in their boots.”
“Technically you’re not a
dropout. You just didn’t finish high
school due to mitigating circumstances.”
“You learned that phrase from
Torin, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Kyr pinched his ear, making him squirm, and
stopped when the squirming got too distracting.
“Doesn’t mean I’m not right.”
“Remind me to get my diploma when
all this shit is finally over.” Solan
yawned hugely. “And I thought war was
bad. I’m going for a shower.”
He heaved himself up and wandered
out of the room, absently scratching at one hip. Kyr waited for a moment, glancing at his
discarded comic book, then got up and went after him, catching him at the door
and pushing him inside, kicking the door shut with one foot. He silenced Solan’s half-hearted protests
with his mouth and quickly got him out of his clothes before slowing down to
take advantage of their brief time alone together.
For once he was the first one
awake when dawn crept into the bedroom through the slim space between the
curtains, while Solan still snored softly beside him, dark curls tousled over
the pillow. Kyr gently traced up the
outside line of his ear, brushing a fingertip across the point and thinking
about the first time he’d done it, when the fact that Solan was Fae had seemed
like the end of the world. Smiling a
little, he kissed the corner of Solan’s mouth and eased himself out of bed,
heading downstairs to the kitchen to put the coffee on.
The first half of spring had
passed before the first main version of the truce was signed and sealed by both
sides, and afterwards both human and Fae armies made their way further south,
to the town where Kyr and Torin had trained to become soldiers. Torin disappeared for a few days to visit his
family—reminding Kyr that he hadn’t seen his father, stepmother, or stepsister
since he’d sent Magdalin on her way at Camp Bobby—and Kyr spent the time
showing Solan around the town and the now-empty barracks. They met Ermey once, on the street outside,
but after a brief nod to both of them, Ermey continued on his way without
comment.
As the spring began to shade
towards summer, the talks resumed and Solan was pulled away again, joined by
Torin when he came back from seeing his parents. Soldiers were gradually sent home unless they
requested to stay, leaving the town quiet without the nightly parties and
slightly drunken get-togethers. On a
rare night off, Kyr tracked down Akiva and Mikael, relieved to find they were
both alive and unharmed, and dragged Torin out to join them at a local
bar. By midnight they were all drunk enough
to stagger down the street arm in arm, singing loudly and off-key, and Kyr
decided the next morning that the hangover was worth it.
Celebrating came naturally on the
evening the next stage of the treaty was signed, until a party was in
full-swing in the courtyard of the town’s biggest hotel, which had been given
over entirely to high-ranking officers both Fae and human. Kyr spent the first few hours wandering
through the crowd, drinking a beer and talking to people he knew, watching how
former enemies were beginning to mingle and tentatively make friends. After a while he moved up to the balcony
where Solan was sitting with Lokan, Ceridwen, and Torin, dropping onto Solan’s
lap hard enough to make him grunt.
“Is this what you wanted?” he
asked Lokan when Lokan glanced over at him.
Lokan raised an eyebrow. “You in Solan’s lap?”
“No,” Kyr said, laughing despite
himself. “Humans and Fae getting
together. Partying together.”
“I’m not going to say it’s a bad
thing.” Lokan looked back out over the
crowd moving endlessly in the courtyard, bright and flashy colours in the light
of lamps and bonfires. “Somewhat
unexpected, but better than rioting and trying to murder each other.”
A sensation like cold fingers
ghosted up the line of Kyr’s spine and he shivered, reaching down absently to
touch the butt of the gun on his hip, glad no one had even attempted to tell
him and Torin to give up their weapons.
He could see Torin’s own gun strapped securely to his belt, half-hidden
under his loose sweatshirt, but the sight didn’t reassure him as much as it
should have.
He tried to distract himself by
tickling Solan but it didn’t work for long.
As it got closer to midnight he left the balcony again, walking down the
stairs alone after both Torin and Solan told him they didn’t want to brave the
drunken crowd. He wondered if things
were getting out of control down in the courtyard and if that was what was
making him fidgety, but despite the general consumption of alcohol, everyone he
saw seemed to be happy and genial.
He moved past the courtyard, into
the relative quiet and cool darkness of the park that stretched around one side
of the hotel, and found a path to jog along.
It brought him in a wide circle and he came back into the courtyard
through another entrance, a little sweaty and breathing hard, but beginning to
force himself to relax. The crowd hadn’t
diminished any in his half-hour absence and he decided to go back up onto the
balcony until it began to settle down.
Something prickled along his
senses as he approached the stairs and he stopped, glancing around
himself. To his left was only the motion
of the crowd, dancing and talking and drinking, but when he looked to his right
he saw a small island of stillness. The
man was standing with his eyes raised towards the balcony where Lokan now
leaned on the railing with Torin beside him, both of them watching the
crowd. Ceridwen and Solan were standing
by the top of the stairs, half-hidden by the wall, their heads close together.
Kyr saw it all in a split-second
look and grabbed for his own gun even as the still man pulled an ugly
snub-nosed pistol from somewhere in his jacket, taking aim in a classic shooter’s
stance. Time seemed to slow and Kyr fought
to get his gun free from its holster, flicking the safety off with his thumb,
feeling like he was making every movement through molasses while all around him
people partied without even noticing what was happening in their midst.
He and the man fired almost at
the same instant, the stutter sound of two shots overlapping and echoing
through the courtyard. Kyr saw the
people closest to them start to turn, their faces beginning to slowly show
drunken confusion, even as his shot blew half the still man’s head away in a
burst of blood, bone, and brains. The
still man collapsed in graceful slow-motion, but Kyr didn’t wait to see him hit
the cobblestones, already bolting for the stairs up to the balcony.
He ran as hard as he could,
trying not to see the image playing in front of his open eyes, but it wouldn’t
stop. Even as he shoved someone out of
his way and heard someone else scream—high and drilling; not a soldier, a
distant part of his mind said, because soldiers don’t scream at death—he saw Torin
straighten up again, alerted by some instinct similar to Kyr’s own; saw him
suddenly give Lokan a hard shove back away from the railing even as the still
man fired; and saw Torin jerk with the force of the bullet’s impact and
collapse like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut.
He ran, taking the steps two at a time, knowing
even as he did that it was too late.